Pat Curran had a tough go of it to open Bellator’s eighth season, but he made things look easy to close out the campaign.

Curran needed just over half a round at Bellator 95 on Thursday to stop Shahbulat Shamhalaev with a first-round guillotine choke to retain his Bellator featherweight title in his second defense of the belt.

Bellator 95 took place at Revel Atlantic City in New Jersey. The main card aired on Spike TV following prelims on Spike.com. The event was the season finale of Bellator’s eighth season, its first on the Spike cable network.

Curran and Shamhalaev looked to trade early, searching for openings and range. Curran landed a front kick to the body, and Shamhalaev tried to answer with some outside leg kicks. But for the first half of the round, the feeling-out process took precedence.

But midway through the frame, Curran shot for a takedown. he took Shamhalaev’s back just for a moment, and when Shamhalaev turned, Curran immediately pounced in for a guillotine choke. He jumped back and cranked on it, and he had it tight. Referee Keith Peterson looked in closely at Shamhalaev, and when the Russian’s arms went limp, he stopped the fight.

Shamhalaev fell forward, his body limp, as Curran hopped out to celebrate. When Shamhalaev came to, he protested the stoppage, claiming he hadn’t tapped. But replays fairly clearly showed Peterson’s decision to stop the fight with a technical submission was a good one. The end came at the 2:38 mark of the first.

After Curran’s January split-decision win over Patricio “Pitbull” Freire in the first defense of the title, he rebounded with a decisive victory over one of the division’s hardest hitters. And he now moves on to a title fight with tournament winner Daniel Straus, who was supposed to face Curran on Thursday but had to withdraw with a broken hand, moving Shamhalaev up in the pecking order. Curran beat Straus nearly four years ago in his cousin Jeff Curran’s XFO promotion.

“It feels great,” Curran said. “I didn’t get hit once in the face. I just wanted to get in, get out, get back to the gym and get on to the next one. Everyone coming up in the tournament right now has a lot of skills and huge talent. I can’t wait to face Daniel Straus again for our rematch.”

Curran (19-4 MMA, 9-1 BFC) won for the sixth straight time, which includes three wins in the 2011 “Summer Series” tournament and three title fights. He has four stoppages over that stretch. Shamhalaev (12-2-1 MMA, 3-1 BFC) had an 11-fight unbeaten streak snapped with the loss.

Magomedrasul Khasbulaev couldn’t put Mike Richman away, but he did enough to earn a title shot.

“Frodo” was able to land more often than Richman in a back-and-forth slugfest contested mostly on the feet. But it was perhaps his three takedowns that sealed the deal in a 30-27 sweep of the judges’ scorecards. The win earned him Bellator’s Season 8 featherweight tournament title and an eventual 145-pound title shot.

Richman landed right hands early, while Khasbulaev landed a good left and a kick to the body. But Richman continued to come forward and landed a pair of spinning back kicks to the body. Richman landed a left hand that was on the money, but seconds later Khasbulaev landed a good right hand and he tried to take advantage of a takedown attempt right behind it. But Richman remained on his feet and a few seconds later ate a few wide punches from Khasbulaev. The Russian continued to get inside and land, and he cut Richman open under his nose.

The two again traded at a rapid pace in the second. And while Khasbulaev appeared to land first more often, and perhaps the bigger punches, Richman did damage, too, cutting Khasbulaev open on the right side of his face. With three minutes left, Khasbulaev scored a takedown. But Richman was back up quickly without taking much damage on the canvas. With a minute left, Richman decided against taking advantage of a Khasbulaev slip and stayed on the feet. But not long after, he was able to take the fight to the floor after landing a body shot. But he didn’t do much work there in what could have been a moment to steal back the round.

Richman tried to start fast in the third, and Khasbulaev looked for a takedown that Richman stuffed. Not long after, Khasbulaev again shot. Richman defended for a moment, but Khasbulaev was able to get him down briefly. Both fighters were able to get punches through, but their paces clearly had slowed. With 70 seconds left, Richman tried a kick that Khasbulaev used for a takedown and some short ground-and-pound. But Richman was quickly back to his feet for the final minute.

Doug Marshall stood over the top of an unconscious Brett Cooper, his arms outstretched, staring down. He was sending a message that Cooper obviously was missing while out cold.

And that message apparently was: Don’t stand up with me. Marshall knocked out Cooper with two vicious right hands to win Bellator’s Season 8 middleweight tournament, advancing to a title fight with champion Alexander Shlemenko in the process. The thing is, Cooper didn’t stand up with Marshall for long – but after being kept at bay on the ground, Marshall made Cooper pay.

The two slugged it out in the opening seconds. But about a minute in, Cooper shot in and got a takedown. And after Marshall worked his way back to his feet, Cooper kept his grip and scooped him up to plant him right back on the canvas.

Cooper was able to posture up and land some short left hands that had Marshall showing a thumbs-up to the referee that they weren’t affecting him. And with two minutes left, Marshall again got back to his feet. But Cooper remained relentless in trying to drag the fight to the canvas.

But Marshall was relentless in trying to get some separation, and when he finally did, the slugger took advantage in a major way.

An elbow grazed Cooper and he started to back to the center, covering up. A right hand landed from Marshall, and with Cooper in the center of the cage, backing away, Marshall cocked back and landed a right hand flush that had Cooper out cold and on his back. As the referee rushed in to stop it, Marshall landed one more big bomb on the ground – pretty clearly unnecessary in terms of whether or not Cooper was out or not.

Marshall reminded everyone after the fight about his power, and made a prediction about what will happen when he faces Shlemenko for the title, likely later this year.

“You’ve seen me before. If I catch you with the right hand, you’re going to sleep,” said Marshall, a better than 2-to-1 underdog. “I hope he’s OK. I was trying to knock his beard off, but it didn’t come off. Maybe next time. Fighting the Russian? America.”

Marshall (18-6 MMA, 4-0 BFC) stayed unbeaten in Bellator with his fourth straight win. Cooper (19-8 MMA, 6-3 BFC) had a six-fight win streak snapped with the loss and was stopped for the first time in nearly four years.

Rick Hawn stops Karo Parisyan in judo grudge match

It had been years since they met, but Rick Hawn wasn’t shy about saying he didn’t much care for Karo Parisyan heading into their Bellator 95 welterweight bout.

Hawn said he twice beat Parisyan in judo matches back in the day. But that was years ago, and the two judo experts had a new score to settle on Thursday. In MMA, Hawn left little doubt with a second-round TKO – and moved to 3-0 against his onetime and perhaps newfound rival.

Parisyan came forward quickly, and 20 seconds in the two tied up in a clinch. But on the separation, Hawn landed what the referee and Parisyan said was a low knee. The replay may have shown otherwise, but Parisyan was ready to restart quickly. The two tried to find openings to trade on the feet, but neither landed much of consequence in the opening two minutes.

With nearly two minutes left in the round, Parisyan caught a Hawn low kick and used it to counter with a right hand that had Hawn backing up. With a minute left in the round, Parisyan caught Hawn with a left low kick, and Hawn took a moment to recover. With seven seconds left in the round, Hawn connected with a big right head kick and followed it with a good four-punch combination that likely clinched the frame for him.

Parisyan tried to open aggressively in the second, but a minute in, Hawn handed a body shot, then a right hand. Not long after that, he returned to the body and may have found an area to target going forward.

But if he did, it wouldn’t matter. Hawn landed a right hand that had Parisyan wobbled. He put him to the canvas with uppercuts, and with Parisyan on his knees trying to grab for an ankle, Hawn landed hammer fists until the referee quickly stepped in for the stoppage at the 1:55 mark.

Hawn said he’ll move back to lightweight to make another run at a title in that division rather than stay at welterweight. He lost a title fight to Michael Chandler in January at 155.

“I wasn’t trying to look for it the whole time – I knew he was waiting for it,” Hawn said. “I had to wait till the second round to mix things up. I remember him from back in the old days, and he’s good. So I had to be careful. He stumbled from the first one and I came in too aggressive, but I made it work out for me. ’55 is where I’m staying. Karo’s not a huge welterweight – he’s like my size. So I figured it was a good matchup.”

Hawn (15-2 MMA, 7-2 BFC) is back in the win column after his loss to Chandler and has won four of his past five. Parisyan (22-10 MMA, 0-1 BFC) had a two-fight win streak snapped and falls to 3-4 since his UFC release in late 2010.

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